


Spotty

by wheel_pen



Series: Lucy [20]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex tries to bond with his son Damian.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spotty

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Lucy, my original character, is Clark’s cousin on the Kent side. Although human she may have some strange psychic powers and definitely has some issues in her past. She’s having a tough time with her mom and goes to live with Jonathan and Martha for a while. She and Lex form a relationship.
> 
> 2\. In my world, Lex eventually becomes President. And his staff is from The West Wing. 
> 
> 3\. I started writing this series during the third season of Smallville, so it diverges from canon then or earlier.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

            Lex knew he was in for it, but the knowledge didn’t put him in a better mood when he saw his wife walk carefully into the lounge and shut the doors tightly behind her. “What the h—l is wrong with you?” she demanded without preamble.

            “I don’t understand why you’re mad at _me_ ,” he responded defensively. “The first big test he gets in his life, and he fails, completely. _I_ didn’t have anything to do with it.”

            Lucy stared at her husband. “Lex. Get. A. Grip,” she told him angrily. “You are acting like he blew off a major business deal to go partying.” She refrained from pointing out that he had done just that, many a time, by his own admission. “He’s five years old, and he doesn’t know how to tie his shoes.”

            “I could tie my shoes at five years old.” The statement sounded ridiculous even to him.

            “Well you’re just a frickin’ genius, aren’t you?” she replied sarcastically. “That must account for all your success in later life.”

            “Lucy—“

            “Lex, if I wanted to crush what little self-confidence he has, I’d take him up to Metropolis to see his grandfather!”

            “And if _I_ wanted him coddled and spoiled, I’d take him over to your aunt and uncle’s!” Lex replied heatedly.

            Tense silence hung in the room. Lucy crossed her arms over her chest in that impenetrable way of hers. Lex sighed and leaned back on the desk. He _hated_ having no idea what he was doing… and it seemed like he felt that way _all the time_ where fatherhood was concerned.

            After a minute Lucy relaxed a bit and tried to look at her husband without being furious at him. She reminded herself that he hadn’t exactly had good role models growing up… but at least he was _trying_. She wandered over to him across the intricately-patterned hardwood floor and stopped close enough to whisper in his ear.

            “I could tie my shoes at _four_ years old.”

            “Shut up,” he told her, pulling her closer and resting his head on her shoulder.

            “He really looks up to you, Lex,” Lucy pointed out, rubbing the back of his neck.

            “He has to. He’s kind of short at the moment,” Lex muttered in return.

            “You’re his hero.”

            “ _Why_ , in G-d’s name?”

            Lucy tipped his face up to hers. “Because you’re his _dad_ ,” she told him with a smile. “And you take care of us.”

            “That’s lousy reasoning,” Lex concluded.

            “Well, he’s only five.”

            They were quiet for a minute. Then Lex straightened up and announced reluctantly, “I’ll go talk to him. Where is he?”

            Lucy smiled. “At my aunt and uncle’s.”

            “Great,” Lex sighed. “As if they didn’t hate me enough as it is.”

            “They don’t _hate_ you,” she insisted. “But, there might be kind of an… emotional clog there.”

            “’Emotional clog’?” Lex repeated, unconvinced.

            “It’s not permanent,” Lucy decided. “It’ll go away… someday… as long as you don’t do anything stupid.”

            “Like, say, yell at their de facto grandson?” Lex suggested.

            “Yeah…” Lucy nodded slowly. “That probably set you back a bit.”

            “Wonderful.” Lex picked up his jacket from the back of the couch and put it on as if donning a suit of armor that shielded against wrathful older relatives.

            “Into the fire, big boy,” Lucy told him encouragingly, slapping his shoulder.

            “Thanks.”

 

            Lex felt as though he ought to knock before entering the kitchen at the Kent farmstead, even though he had been there many times. It felt especially chilly towards him today, although that might possibly be his imagination. Fortunately Martha saw him before he had to make his final entry decision. “Lex!” Her smile was… present, if a little tight. “Come in.”

            “Thanks.” She appeared to be making dinner at the stove, but her more combative husband was nowhere in sight.

            “Jonathan’s out in the barn,” Martha commented, as if reading his mind. Lex decided to avoid the barn for the moment. Instead he rounded the half-wall separating the kitchen from the dining area and stopped before the table, where his son sat with a pile of paper and some crayons.

            “Hey,” Lex ventured.

            Damian glanced up, then back down. “Hey,” he replied quietly.

            “Can I join you?” The boy shrugged, so Lex sat down opposite him. “What are you drawing?”

            Damian shrugged again. “A house,” he mumbled.

            “Can I draw something?” Shrug. Lex took a piece of paper and looked at it for a moment, waiting for inspiration. Then he picked up a black crayon and began drawing intently.

            His concentration piqued the boy’s interest. “What are you drawing?”

            “It’s a dog,” his father replied. “I used to draw him when I was little.”

            Kneeling precariously in his chair, Damian leaned forward for a better look. “Was it your dog?”

            “It’s the dog I _wanted_ to have,” Lex clarified slowly. He didn’t think he’d ever told anyone this story. For some reason, he felt reluctant to reveal it, even to a five-year-old. How silly. It wasn’t _that_ big a deal.

            “Wouldn’t Grandpa let you have it?” Despite being upset at his dad, Damian was intrigued.

            Lex shook his head. “No, he said animals were… distracting.”

            “Guess he’d be really _dis---tracted_ at a farm, huh?” the boy suggested.

            Lex looked up and smiled a little bit. “Yeah, I guess so.”  
            He drew a little bit more. He hadn’t drawn this dog in years—almost thirty—but all the details seemed to come back to him easily. The rounded belly, the floppy ears, the black spots arranged just so, the lolling red tongue. “What was his name?” Damian inquired.

            “Spotty,” Lex replied with a small smile. Damian smiled too. “I used to draw pictures of him all the time,” he continued. “Pictures of the two of us. And I would make up stories to tell people about how we played together and went places together and…” Lex was suddenly keenly aware of Martha trying very hard to be quiet in the background, but he cleared his throat and pressed on anyway. “Had adventures. That kind of thing.”

            Damian nodded with great understanding. “And then one day,” Lex went on, “there was a party at our house, a grown-up party, and the parents of some of the kids from school were there.” Lex found himself unwilling to make eye contact as he continued to draw the appropriate dog accoutrements—the water bowl labeled “Spotty,” the rope chew toy, the leash he never needed because he was such a well-behaved dog. “And they asked my father—your grandpa—about this dog, because they had heard so many funny stories, and seen so many drawings, and they thought it was _so nice_ that he had gotten me this dog that I loved so much.” Lex had to tell himself to keep his tone light, not too bitter.

            “But there wasn’t a real dog,” Damian anticipated, his expression serious.

            “That’s right,” his father agreed. “There wasn’t a real dog. I had made him up, because I wanted him so much.”

            “Was Grandpa mad?” the boy whispered.

            Lex nodded, then nodded again. “Yeah, he was mad,” he finally said. He hadn’t thought about this in a long time. And now he remembered why.

            “’Cause you told a lie?” Damian asked. “But you didn’t really tell a lie, did you? Mama says there’s a difference between telling a lie and telling a story.”

            “Yes, that’s true, there’s a difference,” Lex replied. “Grandpa wasn’t mad about that. He was mad because…” Lex tried to decide if this would make sense to a five-year-old. “When all those people started asking him about the dog, Grandpa said he didn’t know what they were talking about. And I had to come over and explain that they were just stories, because I wanted a dog and he wouldn’t let me have one.  So Grandpa was embarrassed. He thought I made him look… silly in front of everyone. That’s why he was mad. You see?”

            Damian thought about it for a moment, then he nodded. “Grandpa doesn’t like to be silly.”

            “No, no, he doesn’t.”

            “Did he yell at you?” the boy asked quietly, staring at the corner of his drawing that he was curling up with a chubby finger.

            “Yes, he did,” Lex confirmed.  “He yelled at me a lot. He said…” No, Lex decided, let’s not go there. “Well, he yelled a lot.”

            “Was Grandma mad?” the boy wanted to know. “Was she there? Or had she already gone to live in Heaven?”

            Lex glanced up at his son. Someone had been giving him a little doctrine. Must be the Kents. “She was still there,” he replied. “She wasn’t mad. She knew that they were just stories. In fact,” he added more lightly, “she yelled at Grandpa for yelling at _me_. Which is what your mother just did.”

            “Mama yelled at you?” Damian’s eyes widened. Clearly he was impressed.

            Lex nodded. “She was mad at me. And she was right. I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Damian. I’m sorry.” Amazing how easily that slipped out, after all the time spent working up to it.

            “It’s okay, Daddy,” the boy answered, brightening. “Teacher said she was going to show us again how to tie our shoes. But it’s hard to remember,” he admitted.

            “I could help you,” Lex offered, then added quickly, “if you want.”

            “Really?” Damian’s smile was huge, and Lex felt a matching one pulled onto his own face.

            “If you want.”

            “Okay!” Damian immediately hopped out of his seat, rounded the table, and crawled up into his father’s lap. Lex barely had time to push the chair away from the table before the boy hitched up a leg and began undoing the lace on one of his red-and-blue sneakers. “What do I do first?”

            Lex examined the shoe critically. “Well, first you take this part here…”


End file.
